the Detour Continues
by invisiblefriends
Summary: The real horror wasn't the dangling, mutilated bodies found in the home of the Mothmen - it was the FBI seminar on Team Building that followed ...
1. Chapter 1

**'DETOUR - Continued'**

CHAPTER 1

* * *

They catch a glimpse of themselves in the elevator mirror; covered in dirt, torn clothes, scratches on their faces and hands. They were secretly surprised – and disappointed – when the hotel clerk checked them in without a problem. And, to make it worse, he even had the nerve to add that no matter how late they arrived their rooms would be ready and waiting.

The elevator stops at the seventh floor and Agents Mulder and Scully step out, each hauling luggage and a suit bag. And key cards.

Mulder waits when her card slips from her hand, does a funny little bounce on the carpet and lands in front of someone's door.

Scully picks it up and they slowly stumble along the hallway together. She stops at 703; her door. He stops at 707 across the hall.

Neither speaks because they are too damn exhausted from their adventures - if you wanted to call it that - in the forest and then the cave. The ' _Did Drop Inn'_ as Mulder has named it.

They spare a look to each other. Mulder shrugs. She shrugs back.

"See you in fifteen?" he asks.

"Make it thirty," she tells him. She hopes to catch a nap.

"I don't see why we have to go down there at all. Why can't we just wait until it officially starts tomorrow morning?"

"Because I want to get the first step over with and I need some food. You do what you want."

"Might be some booze there," Mulder muses.

"I hope so," Scully sighs. "But don't have much. You're on those antibiotics."

Kind of her to remind him. They had made a pit-stop between the motel and their arrival at this resort. Scully found a small clinic where she arranged a tetanus shot and prescription for Mulder. Unfortunately, that was all she thought to arrange.

"I'll pass on the cocktails and weenies," he decides. "I didn't get a lot of sleep last night."

"Try staying awake all night with a fully grown, injured man lying across your lap."

"Point taken. Thanks for that, by the way."

"Anytime."

* * *

"So, you saved the Wonder Twins?"

A group of agents are collected around a table at the Wine and Cheese, listening to the recollections of two would-be heroes.

Agents Kinsley and Stonecypher glance at the other. "I didn't say we saved them. We…."

"Aided fellow agents when they were in need of …" begins Kinsley.

"Aid," finishes Stonecypher. She smiles proudly. "Mike noticed they hadn't checked in yet. Or called ahead to say they would be late. Mike misses nothing."

Kinsley smiles, a little embarrassed. "All in a day's work."

Agent Finn snorts. "Should have left them down there. Their Holy Savoir would have had them up by morning anyway."

Everybody looks at him, confused.

"Skinner? Their protector? With the amount of shit they cause… someone's got to be covering their butts."

Stonecypher tries to steer the conversation back to the rightful owners. "I certainly can't imagine what they would have done if we hadn't arrived. When Agent Scully told us the day before that she and Agent Mulder were going to stay behind and help the local law enforcement, I told her that was a bad idea. If it weren't for Mike realizing that they weren't back this morning, I'm sure they would still be-"

"They'd probably still be in the bottom of that hole, happy as hell they are missing _this."_ Wade from Vice waves his arms towards the ballroom that will serve as their headquarters for the next two days.

"Well, they are not still at the bottom of that hole, thanks to us. And they were very grateful for our assistance."

Kinsley looks at her sideways. _Very grateful_ is pushing it a bit. _Just Grateful_ would have done. Mulder and Scully are not the most enthusiastic people to start with. Neither seems to have the need to waste too many words on thanks when the few they actually issued did the job.

"Hey, was it the Bureau's version of Groundhog Day when the two weirdest agents pop their heads up from the ground, see their collective shadow and then disappear back into their basement for six more weeks." Agent Finn laughs at his own joke. Nobody else seems to grasp the irony of his humour. He knocks the rest of his drink so far back, you would think his face is going to be sucked into the crystal.

Agent Stonecypher clears her throat fearing she is losing her audience. She stretches her head to take a careful look around the oversized ballroom to make sure she is not being eavesdropped upon. She was, if nothing else, careful. "Did you know that they pack each other's luggage? His _and_ hers."

"They pack each other's luggage?" someone else echoes with a snort.

"I wouldn't _dare_ let Mike touch my clothes."

Kinsley laughs but deep down he wonders why she wouldn't dare let him touch her clothes.

Stonecypher continues. "The _moment_ the car stops at a roadblock, he marches out and disappears straight into the woods Then, she gets out without a word and when I ask her where he thinks he is going, she just walks off after him, straight Into the woods. "

Agent Finn lifts his heavy feet onto the chair across from him. Agent Finn was at the end of the line in etiquette school. "So what were they like to drive with? Was he all… Spooky? Maybe she had a cadaver in the trunk. A nice fresh Little Green Man to open up. Mmmmm, tasty."

* * *

"You think I should have worn my purple underwear?" Agent Mulder carefully adjusts the knot in his tie as the elevator doors open.

His partner might have smiled at his usual humour, but today is different. Fellow FBI agents - colleagues - are swirling all around them. Comments about underwear would be taken the wrong way by people who consider them social freaks in the first place.

They stop at the doors of the Euclid Ballroom. A large red banner is draped over the double doors: Welcome _Teams!_

"They should be paying us to deliver a seminar on Teamwork," Mulder hisses into Scully's ear. "These people could learn from us."

"I think that's what the bureau is afraid of."

Mulder thinks this over and nods. "Look at them all in there; the collective motion of self-propelled entities."

"mmmmmm," she murmurs.

"You know, earlier studies of swarm behaviour used mathematical models to simulate and understand the behaviour."

"Not now, Mulder. God, look at them all."

What looks like hundreds of other FBI agents are buzzing before them, clustered in small groups or hovering around food tables and the open bar. A hint of Muzak is floating through the room, in and out of conversations.

"Definitely the purple," Mulder whispers.

They walk into the enormous Euclid Ballroom, feeling like two doomed hotdogs at a weenie roast. A few of the agents, the lucky ones closest to the door, notice them. A few of those make cracks about the Spookys. The cracks make their way through the room and by the time Mulder and Scully are at the booze table, there is a wide berth around them so that enough people can stare or come up with clever jokes or just gawk if nothing original pops up.

But it isn't really like this.

Mulder's paranoid side only thinks this is happening. One or two agents pause from their chit-chat to stare. Maybe the word, 'Spooky' is heard once or twice. Other than that, their entrance has gone well and with very little interest whatsoever.

Mulder pours a beer for Scully and himself. They stand side by side, looking out at the sea of civilization before them. People who don't know each other are making small talk; people who know each other are catching up. People who can't stand these things are smiling until they can get the hell out of here and go to a real bar to get shitfaced. The sea holds all kinds of fish today.

Across the room, Stonecypher and Agent Cindy Sears from Fraud watch them with a voyeur's eye-to-detail. Cindy Sears tilts her head curiously. "I heard they had a lock installed on their office door. From _the inside_."

"I wouldn't be surprised."

They watch Agent Scully put her drink down, say something to Mulder and wander across the room towards one of the food tables.

"Didn't she use to go with an agent about ten years ago?"

Stonecypher's head turns quickly. "Did she?"

"Yes. He got killed in a bank robbery though."

Stonecypher nods. "Poor Dana. Well, maybe she's bounced back. She certainly has recovered from her illness. Almost as good as new."

"Really? She looks exhausted."

"Jet Lag," Kinsley decides generously. He has noticed Agent Scully's fatigue and chalked it up to a long car ride and years of Agent Mulder dragging her across the country. "As soon as they unpack, change, put away their FBI identities, they'll be rarin' to go. Once you get to one of these things, you forget all your troubles. Another Shirley Temple, Agent Stonecypher?"

Cindy leans over to Stonecypher and asks thoughtfully, "Would you go out with him?"

"I suppose I might flirt with him. Look at him. Tall, lean. He's got a great body. I saw him with his shirt off today. Oh my."

 _"When_ did you see him with his shirt off?"

"At the site. The paramedics were patching up his shoulder." Agent Stonecypher lowers her voice to an acceptable lust. "He works out."

"Oh, he works out all right. I've seen him at the pool." She rolls her eyes and whistles appreciably. "Hot."

"And his eyes. You know, they are very beautiful, very... sexy. "

"What about his…"

"Ladies," Kinsley chokes. "Do you mind? This isn't very appropriate conversation." He isn't sure, but he suspects he is blushing.

"We are allowed to look," Stonecypher informs him with a righteous smile. "I just don't tell Julius that." Julius is her fiancé of eight years.

"I wonder how long it is until she finds her way over to him.".

"I give it a couple of minutes," Stonecypher judges thoughtfully. "They are never apart for long."

"A couple of minutes? I bet I could flirt with him enough to get her running back to his side in _thirty-seconds_." Cindy Sears says.

"Bet you couldn't," Stonecypher says back. " _Thirty_ seconds?"

"Set your timer, Agent Stonecypher. I'm going in."

"Ladies, _please_ ," Kinsley begs again. He looks across the room and tries to understand what these women would see in a man like Mulder instead of, say, a man like himself.

But it is useless. Both of these normally reasonable women have just enough booze in them to egg the other into doing something stupid.

Which they do.

* * *

Mulder is cruising up and down the food table. The room is getting louder and louder and he mentally gives Scully one more minute before he leaves without her.

"Fox?"

He turns around and finds Cindy Sears beaming at him. She is holding two glasses of wine. "I thought that was you," and she shoves one of the glasses into his hand. She takes his beer and puts it on the table. "Cindy. From Quantico." It is a safe opening. _Anybody_ from Quantico would qualify as someone he may have run into.

Mulder does the gentlemanly thing and offers her a chair at his very empty table. Cindy does the clever thing and sits right next to him. In a moment, her legs are crossed and she is leaning towards her prey, reaching out to touch - but not actually touch - his injured shoulder. She picks the wrong side.

"How is it? I heard all about it."

Mulder is confused. "All about ….."

"The woods. The animal that attacked you. It ripped its claws into your shoulder."

"How did you know about the …."

"Agents Stonecypher and Kinsley. They told us about the bodies you recovered, the injured you found and saved, all on your own."

"Agent Scully was the one who came up with the idea of building a step ladder out of the bodies in place of an actual ladder …."

Mulder steals a glance across the room to see if this partner who had brought him back from the dead, saved him from himself and other nightmares would come and save him from this hell now. Scully happens to catch his desperate eye but she just shrugs and smiles and moves along.

He is on his own.

Cindy is now talking about cats or military tactics or something. He can swear she is checking him out at the same time.

Across the room, Agent Stonecypher is watching with awe at Cindy's performance in _The Magic of the Flirt - u_ ntil she observes Agent Scully watching her partner caught up in the lures of Cindy Sears. Dana Scully doesn't wander back. She just gives her partner a funny look and wanders back into the crowd. Thirty seconds are up. Then forty. Then sixty. Nope. Cindy Sears isn't that good after all.

In two minutes, Mulder's cell phone rings. "Mulder… Now? Yes, Sir."

He snaps the phone shut. "I've got to get to a private line." With an awkward goodbye to Ms. Sears, he is gone.

At the furthest set of elevators he can find, he hears a familiarpattern of footsteps from behind. "Don't say I never do anything for you, Mulder."

"Never again," he promises and turns around.

Scully is smiling. "You look like you were enjoying yourself with her."

"Jealous?"

"Oh, no. Apparently Cindy Spears from Quantico likes to go around making bets about people's behaviour. Usually men – usually the challenging ones."

Mulder loosens his tie restlessly. "I'm considered a challenge?"

"You're Spooky Mulder. By the way, we're in the top five rumours again this year."

"Same thing?"

"No, this year's is a bit different. We're divorced. Have been for years. But we talked about a reunion while we were stuck in the cave."

"What do you say we get out of here for a while, Scully. Go for a walk in the woods."

Anyone overhearing this suggestion would take it an all-out innuendo. Scully knows better. "Leave it alone. Let the local authorities deal with whatever is left."

"You aren't even slightly curious? Such a scientific anomaly like that? Right on your doorstep?"

"The only thing on my doorstep is my presentation and a good night's sleep. You could stand to do the same."

A heavy sigh slips out before he can stop it. "Skip the presentation, Scully."

They have gone over this argument three times now in a week. He isn't gaining any ground.

"Don't, Mulder," she warns tensely.

Seminars on dead people don't draw a crowd. One half of the _Spookys_ does. Especially if the other half might be lurking close by, which he usually was.

The elevator finally arrives. Mulder holds one of the doors with his knee while she walks in.

"Aren't you coming?" Scully asks.

"No, I think I'll get a drink at the bar. Why don't you come too? We'll talk about teamwork."

"No, this team player is tired of hearing the word, _team_." The door starts to slide shut. "Mulder, don't do something stup-"

He removes his foot and called, "Sweet dreams," as the doors glide shut.

* * *

 **End of Chapter 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**the Detour Continues CHAPTER 2**

* * *

From a certain angle, at a certain table at the back of the Euclid Room, a group of people can see directly through the lobby, through the coat check and into the hotel bar - and at the figure of Spooky Mulder seated at the third barstool in, comfortably nursing a Vodka and tonic by himself.

Agent Stonecypher purses her lips and speaks with extra relish. "I happen to know that they went to Puerto Rico right after the X-Files closed. Together. I know one of the agents assigned to follow Scully at the airport. She was trying to elude FBI surveillance so she could join him there. That's so ... desperate."

"And a flagrant waste of bureau money," pipes up Vin from Fraud.

Agent Susan Stafford announces to nobody in particular, "I heard Scully went out on a date with some guy who looked exactly like Mulder. About a year ago."

"Maybe it was Mulder," Kinsey suggests only half seriously.

"No, it wasn't him but he was the spitting image. Mulder was so pissed off that he burst in on them at Scully's place and hauled the guy off to jail. Even went to visit the guy in jail. To rub it in, I guess. Word has it he and Scully were very awkward with each other for a long time after that. "

Little Donald McDonald, who is dying to add anything to this conversation, finally speaks up. He has to clear his throat to make sure he has their attention first. He abhors starting a sentence at the same time as someone else and having to be the one to bow out first, with the humiliating, "no, you go first". So he clears his throat each time he has something to say to a group of more than two people.

"I saw them in the parking garage once," he croaks.

The others turn to listen, curious to what can follow such a boring introduction.

"He had his arms around her. Tightly. They were standing very close when they didn't think anyone was watching."

Stacy from Ames, Iowa grins. "I am sooooo going to win that pool."

"They were all over each other," Little Donald McDonald continues.

Agents Fraser and Chow, who have been listening to this crap from the next table, glance at each other and stand up.

"It was the day Agent Scully's sister was buried," Agent Chow tells them pointedly. "She had just come back from the funeral."

And that is what follows such a boring introduction.

The group suddenly falls silent. Nobody is sure if this is a plant to shame them or if Little Donald McDonald actually believes this tidbit is crass enough to qualify for one of their conversations.

"Assholes," Fraser mumbles as they leave for better company.

Mulder goes for his drink in the bar - just the one drink - and it doesn't even taste good. He wonders what bits of conversation are floating over the minds of the others who are watching him from across the hotel. He can see them. He can see two other people slip into the conversation and say something that must be a killer because it leaves the group stone-faced. Puzzles like this keep him occupied for a while. He honestly doesn't care what goes around about him. He used to mind the flighty crap that went around about Scully but he doesn't any more. She doesn't seem to care either.

He takes one last sip from the drink and wonders over the rim of the glass what they would think if they knew that Mulder also doesn't believe any of the theories that spewed out of his mouth. The joke's on them, suckers. Mulder got there first.

* * *

He goes up to his room and intends to go to bed but an idea pops into his head and he ends up outside Scully's room instead.

He goes up to his room and intends to go to bed but an idea pops into his head. He is going to go back to the woods. Mulder changes into jeans and jacket, grabs a flashlight and slips out of his room.

He doesn't want Scully to think he is pulling another back-door on her - things are tense enough between them as it is. So to cover his tracks Mulder gently wraps his knuckles against her door. His heart races excitedly when she doesn't respond. If she is asleep or in the bath, he can truthfully tell her - the next day - that he tried to let her know but she didn't answer so he couldn't tell her. Simple logic.

He takes a few steps away when he hears a crash of something metal followed by a very un-Scully like, "Shi-!"

His hand is on the handle before the final, all telling 't' is out. "Scully, what's..."

She is standing over a fallen lamp. She knocked it over with her coat on the way out.

"It's just a lamp," she sighs tightly, even though her inside-voice is barking, get the hell out of my way! He leans over and picks it up. "Okay. All right. I was passing by and I heard ... never mind. I'll see you in the morning."

He knows he is safe for the next few hours. She is tired and will be out cold shortly. He can go back to the site, see what has and hasn't developed and she will be none the wiser - or angrier.

Then he notices the coat under her arm.

"Going somewhere?" he asks a little hypocritically. He should talk, given that he is also trying to slip out of here. But where the hell is she going? Drinks with the girls? Poker with the boys? A midnight stroll so that she can find his case and solve it before he can- "Are you all right, Scully?"

She looks like crap. She feels like crap. "Yes. No. I was just going out to buy some … aspirin."

"I've got some in my room. Hold on a sec-"

"No, that's okay. I don't ... I need to get … A specific kind."

Mulder steps into her room, clearly puzzled. "You don't feel well?"

"I'm fine."

"Then why do you need to find aspirin?"

The obvious look of, Duh, on her face tries to say it all.

He doesn't get it.

"The End of a Sentence?"

Nothing.

"Bear Season? The unexpected visitor?"

Still nothing. "My period, Mulder," she finally explains. putting on her coat. It is taking all she has not to drop down into the fetal position in agony. He hasn't got a clue, she thought angrily. He hasn't got a clue what this is like.

"Oh." He finally gets it.

"So if you'll excuse me, I would like to find a drugstore."

"I can go. Tell me what you need."

She isn't sure if she should laugh or cringe. Five years, a million or so road trips, and this subject has never reared its awkward head because she has never allowed it to. And now it has reared its awkward head out of the blue and caught her without any aspirin or supplies or, apparently, poise.

"I can handle this, thank you."

He yanks her coat out of her hand. "What do you need?"

Scully gives up. She leans over the desk and scribbles out three lines of items on hotel stationary and hands it to him. She waits to see his reaction. Mulder's life has been filled with heartache, drama, aliens, conspiracies, life and death; but she has no idea if he has encountered any experience with feminine hygiene products.

"Okay," he nods with just a little more confidence than he has. "I can - I'll be back in a few minutes"

She hands him a twenty from her coat pocket and says quietly, "Thank you."

He leans forward and gently informs her, "That's our kind of teamwork."

The woman at the reception desk breaks the news that there is no pharmacy on the premises and the only local pharmacy is ten miles from the hotel.

Mulder quickly sorts out the math in his head. He can do the pharmacy run, get back to Scully and still have time to drive back to the woods.

He finds his new buddy at one of the makeshift card tables in the games room. "Kinsley, I need to borrow your car for half an hour."

Kinsley is contemplating the hand he has just been dealt. It is a good one. If he doesn't mess it up, he could win a bag of M&Ms from SAC Watson.

"Why?" he asks without looking up.

"Why?" Mulder repeats curiously. "Because I need to go into town and meet my Proctologist." He sticks his hand out. "I'm in a hurry."

"We are not supposed to leave the property." Kinsley surveys the pot on the table. It is looking good. "My name is on the rental agreement so don't do anything to the car you aren't prepared to pay for."

"Little trip to the drugstore, Spooky?" Eugene Andrews smirked. He has recently found out that Women go to pharmacies; Men go to drugstores. "Expecting a little action tonight?"

For a second, he wonders how Eugene knows about Scully but Mulder quickly realizes the guy is just being an idiot by jumping to the world's second obvious assumption about trips to the drugstore.

"No, Eugene." Mulder replies. "I have..." The others at the table look up curiously. He leans over and whispered a few sentences into Eugene's ear.

In a moment the smirk on Eugene's face turns into true revulsion. "That's disgusting."

"And that's why I need the car and the longer I stand here talking to you about it, the greater the chances are that I will..."

Kinsley slaps the key into his hand. "Thirty minutes, Mulder. And I'll be checking the mileage."

"Of course you will," Mulder grumbles as he hurries out of the room.

Eugene's face is still screwed up in disgust.

"Told you he had a hemorrhoidal condition," Kinsley says as he lays down another winning hand.

* * *

Mulder knocks once and opens the door to Scully's room. She is lying on her side, a blanket clumsily lying over her. And she still looks like crap.

"I win the scavenger hunt," He sits down next to her and hands her the bag. "Here you go."

"Thanks." Scully sits up and takes a look inside the bag. He's done his job well.

There is a bottle of water on the night stand and in one moment of power, she rips the lid off of her new extra strength bottle and drops two pills down her throat. "Be right back." She takes the bag into the bathroom.

Mulder sits there wondering if he is supposed to leave or not. He knows what she is doing, that is a no brainer. So he waits, ready to look disinterested when she comes back out.

The door finally opens and Scully returns, wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. If she didn't look so miserable, Mulder would make a joke with at least two innuendos in it.

Scully pulls back the top sheet of the bed and slides under.

"Cramps?" he asks.

She nods

"Is it always this bad?"

Scully shakes her head. "No."

He lifts the blanket and gently spreads it over her shoulders. "You need anything else?"

"Just for this to go away."

"Well, that I can't help you with." He has never seen her like this, in pain and at the mercy of over-the-counter medication. What else doesn't he know about her? When else is she at her body's mercy? Sometimes, he sees everything but her because she makes it too easy for him to miss the signs.

"Do you want me to stick around for a while?"

Disappointment creeps over him as he thinks of the Sheriff's crime scene he is about to give up. The disappointment would be worse, he suddenly realizes, if she says, 'no'.

"Sure." Scully closes her eyes. Any other day, she would want him to leave, not to see her in this vulnerable position, to have him believe that she is the only woman who doesn't have patience to deal with this calendar annoyance.

He pulls a chair over to the bed

"I'll be fine in a few hours," she tells him.

Hours? he almost repeats. But he doesn't and grabs enough courage to ask, "Scully, given the last few months or so since the hospital …. Is this something we should check out?"

Her left eye opens. " 'We'?"

He hasn't realized he has used the plural. He thought it went without saying. Maybe, from the faint smile on her face, she does too. Fear is handled best in duos not singles. Rule Number One in Teamwork.

"I'm fine Mulder," she assures him. We are fine, she would have liked to say. Instead, she does her best to get comfortable until the aspirin kick in, and she asks Mulder where he was going earlier.

"Going?"

"You left your flashlight here." .

"Just testing if out. I did find this lying on one of the tables in the lobby." He leans forward and pulls an 8 x 11 booklet from his back pocket. It has, 'Team Building,' splattered across the front. The word, Team, is incorporated over the "I" in FBI, giving the suggestion that yes, there may very well be an 'I' in team.

"Everybody is supposed to fill one of these out, start to finish, stern to bow, top to-"

"Oh," she says dully.

He sits back and lifts his feet on the side of her bed. Looking very official, he grabs a pen from the night table. "Hmm. Fascinating."

"Do I want to know?"

"Oh yes. It's a survey. A Team Survey. Capital Letters and everything. Let's see. Shall we start with the easy ones?"

"God, no."

"Now, now, Agent Scully, where's that go-to spirit? The questions in Level One will make you forget how much pain you're in. We won't talk about Level Two."

"I think I prefer the cramps. But go ahead, amuse yourself."

Mulder plucks the cap from the pen. " 'My partner and I started working together on this date…'" He looks at the question for only a second and jots down the answer.

" Question Two: My partner's birthday is…' Another quick scribble.

"My partner's favourite colour is….." He looks up. "Is plaid considered a colour?"

"Wise-ass."

"Don't try to flatter me. 'The book my partner is currently reading is …." He looks up. "Are you still working your way though that Austrian one?"

"Almost finished."

He writes down the title in the original German.

"My partner's worst fear is …."

Worst fear. They both look up. The survey stops being fun.

"Mice?" he finally suggests. It is mundane enough to make anyone believe it.

"Sure," she waves him ahead, bored.

"Okay - last one in the first part of 'Teamwork; How Well Do We Know Each Other'. The brand of feminine product my partner prefers is …."

Mulder waits for the reaction. He has either jumped his own shark and will shortly drown or he has bridged one of their silent, invisible gaps. He moves his eyes slightly to find out which.

Success. He has made her smile. "Guess I get to live."

"Jury's out. What's the rest?"

He reads down the next page. Level Two. Shit. The Heavy Stuff "Nothing interesting." Mulder crumples the page into a tight little ball and tosses it across the room into the garbage bin. It is a perfect dunk. "More typically generic questions. The Essay kind. Too much thought for a couple of backwards FBI agents who have enough team spirit and communication skills to put the remainder of the agents to shame."

Scully doesn't want to hear the old song again. "We're the only ones we have out there, Mulder: you and I. Nobody else. I think we need to make sure we are both the best we can be. I think, in their indulgently bureaucratic way, the Bureau wants that too."

Mulder leans over towards her "We are the best," he tells her flatly as he stands up.

She knows when not to press things with Mulder. Sometimes the last word is the one to leave alone. "Thanks for doing that, Mulder," she says as he wanders towards the door. "I wasn't sure where your comfort level lay with this sort of thing."

"I do have a certain familiarity with the female anatomy, Agent Scully."

"Did I say you didn't?"

"And I took Sex-Ed in high school."

She rolls her eyes. "Oh, that, I believe."

 **End of chapter 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

Every FBI agent's phone rings at 0600. Every phone rings and rings and rings until someone answers. 'Be outside by 0700,' each agent is told. 'Wear appropriate exercise clothing- Mandatory attendance- No exceptions.'

Every agent in this Developmental Conference (and this takes on many new, colourful middle names as it is being explained), is going to run on one of three designated paths on the resort's property. The options are mind boggling: they can do the one mile Pity-Pat-Lane, the two Mile, Petunia Path or, and this is only for the die-hard teams, the Golden Garden.

Any team who does the full five miles on the Golden Garden will win a mystery prize to be awarded at the end of the run. This makes everyone else grin with relief or growl with resentment. Most of them know a full run isn't in the cards. And most of them decide to take Pity Pat Lane.

Twenty minutes later, the teams are at various points on their chosen paths.

Some teams run together, some give up and walk. Most keep to the path. A few jog in the woods, hopping over anything that makes this run more interesting.

One team wanders along, smoking away and lost in a conversation about a superhero movie they saw.

Mulder and Scully stay comfortably in the middle of the three mile, 'Golden Garden'. Mulder could have been there and back and there again but he is a team player and his teammate is unusually slower today.

And today he hears an unusual, "Mulder, hold on a minute," from behind. He turns, not sure if he has heard right. He has.

Scully is sitting on the side of a boulder, trying to catch her breath.

"Am I going to fast?" he asks.

"No. I just need a second."

He sits down next to her, barely winded. "You don't need to do this."

The look she gives dares him to suggest this one more time. "I can run this course the same as any other agent here this weekend."

Show No Weakness. That's what she really means to say.

"I didn't say you couldn't. But if it were me fresh out of the hospital, you know you'd be pushing me to take it easy."

It's not the same thing, she almost blurts out. This is about me. But she keeps that rebuttal to herself. "I just need a few minutes."

"You have nothing to prove to anybody – them, me, - nobody. Not even yourself."

"That's how you see me? "

"No – "

"Would you ever stop trying to prove anything to yourself? No matter what you had been through?"

"No. But I would know my physical limits, especially if I had gone through what you did. And I would allow myself – or force myself – certain conditions of rest."

"That hasn't stopped you from resting your shoulder. I've seen you holding it, Mulder, so save the Self-Preservation speech."

She is right. His shoulder is sore today, worse than yesterday but that is what happens when Monsters reach up from under the earth and try to separate your body with their fingernails. Well, at least he is smart enough not to bring her current monthly condition into the argument. He knows better than to betray that trust.

"Let me take one for the team. I'll finish the run, meet you back at the hotel for breakfast."

The impasse lasts almost a minute. A record for them. And, in a new turn of events, it is Scully who gives in first. "Maybe you're right."

He flips his hand behind his ear. "Pardon me?"

"Don't push it, Mulder."

"You'll go back to your room and take it easy? Is that what you're saying?

She handed him this one. "Yes. Go do the run. Win a prize. Make me proud."

He nods. Finally, they are making sense again. "You'll be okay getting back on your own?"

She points to her legs. "These still work. I'll meet you at breakfast."

* * *

Egg Toss.

All Aboard.

Amoeba

Scully is going over the list of team building exercises on the agenda for the second time. It doesn't look any better than the first pass. The torment increases when Mulder, fresh from the run, blows into the restaurant like a lottery winner looking for the cashier's desk.

"Hey, Scully, I got a message from the Sheriff's office." He swoops into the chair across from her.

"Whoa, Mulder!" She sits back. "You wouldn't consider taking a shower would you?" I sound like his mother, her inside-voice says.

He reaches for the coffee pot. "In a minute." His eyes widen. "The forensic team found another set of tracks by a third opening to the caverns. That's three, Scully. There's a whole network down there just waiting for us!"

She only needs to hear the joy in his voice to know where he is going with this information. "No, Mulder." Don't put me in this position. He gave up his chance at the crime scene last night to stay with her. She knows that. Now she is going to shit on his parade.

" 'No Mulder' what? What if the prints turn out to be something valuable? They could lead to the discovery of a more complex network of caverns."

"Or what if they are the same foot prints that your Big Blue made with his giant boots on Huevelman's Lake? We can't blow off this weekend because of an anomaly that, in all likelihood, will turn out to be no more than a hoax or simply a perpetrator with Onychocryptosis "

He glances up, puzzled.

"Ingrown toenails," she explains. "How was the rest of the run?"

"Came in first. Turns out we are faster than the rest of these teams. Told you we didn't need to be here. Those footprints are not a waste of time, Scully. Not when we are faced with forty eight hours of this." Mulder waves the agenda in the air with disgust. "If they think exercises like these are going to do anybody any good... these are just more bureaucratic bullshit, Scully. Just another notch in the belt of the personnel department who want to give the impression of providing leadership expertise."

"Only you could find something conspiratorial in a 'Lunch'n Hug' weekend. These exercises look harmless enough. Just annoying."

"But they aren't harmless. To accomplish the maximum results, you need to go far beyond this kind of game-playing in order to accomplish anything of value. Instead, we can be aiding local law enforcement and perhaps come across a discovery or two that might be of some importance to someone other than the Personnel department." He looks the list over again. "No, there is no way I am doing this crap."

"Why is this all about you? Do you think I want to do this?"

"I half suspect you might."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence, Mulder." She sighs tensely. "Look, you know if we don't go, we face repercussions. Skinner was very clear about that."

"Which is something else I'd like to know. Why is he so definite that this was mandatory for us?"

"Oh, I don't know, Mulder, because we report to him and he would like some kind of assurance that we will not kill each other in our sleep."

"Considering we don't sleep together, that's very unlikely to happen."

She gives up. "I don't know why we are here. But we are and this is part of our job and we need to see it through with the same success as we need to see our cases through."

"What are they going to do if we don't stay? Fire us? Fire me? They've taken away every ounce of trust I may have put into their system. If they can at least keep their hands off the paranormal files, I may stand a chance of accomplishing something. That's my job, not wasting time travelling halfway across the country to help them maintain their good housekeeping record."

Scully has yet to determine how deep this unexpected loss of faith in everything he believed in has gone. She knows he is still hurting from the crack his faith took a few months ago. She emerged from that time with herself and her future. Poor Mulder was slammed so hard by facts, he is still reeling.

"And," he rants on. "I don't need anybody prying into my head. I've … I've got you to do that. Nobody else needs to know what's in there."

"Mulder, I don't even know what's in there."

He reaches for the bacon. "Yes you do. You know me better than anybody, Scully. And as you may have noticed, I am not the kind of person who is anxious to have an open admittance to the workings of my psyche."

"I have no intention of revealing anymore than you do."

He leans forward, eyes aglow. "Come on, let's just look into these prints and see what happens. We'll only be gone for a couple of hours maximum. I'll have you back for the Lunch 'n Hug desert. Jello Supreme."

No time for an answer. Stonecypher and Kinsley appear out of nowhere. "Good morning," Stonecypher sings.

Kinsley lands next to Scully. Stonecypher is almost elbow to elbow with Mulder. When she catches wind of the post-run Mulder she politely shifts her chair a few inches to the left. But only a few.

"Good run this morning, agents?" Kinsley asks. "I'm glad they made us go out."

Stonecypher smiles. "There's nothing like good exercise to get the blood flowing; charges you right up for the day ahead. Congratulations, Agent Mulder. That was a very good run you did."

Kinsley smiles at each of them, Scully in particular. He hopes his tie is straight. Stonecypher tried to straighten it in the elevator but she only made it worse because she was talking about Julius at the time.

"I can't wait for the sessions they have today," Stonecypher is practically giggling. "I want to be sure to get there early so we can get a table next to the …. Oh crap. They are here." She is staring across the room. "The Chimneys."

Kinsley looks around her shoulder. "Oh, the chain smokers. This time we are not sitting anywhere near them. I didn't get the smell of cigarettes out of my clothes for a week."

Mulder and Scully look around to see who the offending vultures are. It is the pair of smoking walkers from this morning.

"Smith and Wesson?" Mulder asked, very deadpan.

" Jonhan Wesson and Gladys Smith. You know them?"

"Only by name."

They look at Mulder oddly.

Scully puts them out of their misery and explains the coincidence of two armed agents named after a gun.

"Oh. I suppose. Does anyone have any guesses as to what the mystery exercise for tonight is going to be?"

"What mystery exercise?" Mulder tries to ask without sniping at the man.

"Oh, that's the fun part. Nobody knows. I heard one rumour it was going to be a marathon dance. Or maybe a game night."

"Oh God," Mulder moans under his breath.

"Someone else told me, " Stonecypher says carefully, edging forward for the delicious secrecy she finds in every unsubstantiated rumour, "that it's going to be like a Secret Santa type of exercise. We have to make mystery presents for names we pick from a hat."

"How is that team building between partners?" Scully asks, knowing there won't be a good answer. But she has to ask, because it would kill her not to hear how Stonecypher would find a way to explain the difference.

"Well … it's a way to find out what other teams like and don't like. Even if you don't know who ... Well, by choosing gifts for another person you don't know, you get to know them better and you have just extended your circle of contacts."

Kinsley looks at the time. "Jeepers, we're late for Health and Wellness. We'll see you later, Agents." They bounce to their feet – literally – and dash out of the restaurant.

Mulder and Scully glance at each other. "Well," Mulder sighs. "You don't want to be late for Health and Wellness. "

Scully isn't listening. She turns to her partner with a look of vague frustration. "Mulder, what's wrong with us?"

It is a good question, one he has been asking himself for years. The only consistent answer he ever comes up with is, 'nothing'.

Scully sighs. "We deal with components of the paranormal that are frightening at the best of time; and both of us are scared to death to face a day in that room with those people. Don't look at me like that, you're as terrified as I am except that I have the added baggage of doing that presentation tomorrow."

"Which I told you not to accept."

"Why do you keep saying that? Do you think I'll embarrass you and the X-Files if I inadvertently use the word Science too many times?"

"You're not even close, Scully."

"Then what is it? Because every time I bring it up, you get that look on your face, as if you are expecting the world to end."

"You want to know why I don't want you to do this? There will be questions, remarks you will not be comfortable with; all because you work with me and I don't want to see you share your knowledge with a room full of people who only want to laugh at me, at you, at the X-Files. It's just a spectacle to them. Just like we are."

'And whose fault is that,' she could bark back. The answer goes without saying but the question should remain buried. "What makes you so sure that we – I – won't be taken seriously?"

Truth be told, he doesn't know. He just worries that this will be the outcome.

"Do what you want, Scully. I'm going to shower. If I'm not back in time, tell them to start the oath of allegiance without me." Mulder stands up, grabs a piece of toast and an apple and leaves.

Scully watches. His annoying habit of storming off is difficult to take sometimes. She ought to be used to it by now, but it still occasionally irritates the crap out of her.

She takes the fax left on the table and turns it over. It is blank and she begins to doodle absolute nothings. The nothings turns out to be little bowling balls and pins. She morphs one of the balls into a face that somehow evolves into Mulder's. What the hell is she doing in this job, with this partner, in this line of work. Isn't she supposed to be a doctor?

No, she knows how she got here. Now, she is wondering why she stays.

* * *

There are ten round tables positions strategically within the main ball room. Each table has four chairs. In front of each chair is a bottle of water, a pen, a mint and a pad of 11 x 17 children's craft paper. Laid out on top of this 11 x 17 craft paper, is an eight by ten booklet with the word, SURVEY splashed across in various bright colours. The same booklet that Mulder found the night before.

And at the centre of the table is a jar full of crayons. Five colours, four of each colour.

And there is no escape.

"Where do you think he is?" Kinsley muses to himself as he pries a mint from its wrapper. They are seated at the table closest to the podium where they can see most of the room and be the first to volunteer.

"Men's room?"

"No, I just came from there. There were no feet under any of the stalls but mine."

Stonecypher smiles. This is what she likes most about being partnered with Kinsley. He has the observation skills of a jumped-up hawk. "Well, wherever he is, she doesn't look very pleased."

"No," he agrees. "She doesn't. Oh, that's lovely, Agent Stonecypher."

Agent Stonecypher is waving her arm in vast circles to create an ornate flower with an orange crayon that was left in front of her.

"It's a hybrid of different flowers from my garden. What's that you're working on?"

Kinsley settles back. He has drawn a motorcycle. Two wheels. Blue Seat. Engine all in red with black piping along the chrome.

"Very nice."

"They seemed all right at breakfast, didn't they?"

"I think so. Pass me a blue."

He digs up a blue one from the box. "Look at her face. She's angry. I bet they had a fight."

"Maybe he needed an extra long shower." She lingers on the word shower and tries to picture Agent Mulder in the shower - until she snaps out of her imagination. "I mean, you could certainly smell him at breakfast." It is a ruse. She secretly loved how he smelled at breakfast. Occasionally, Julius goes for a run and forgets to shower and she hangs on that smell for minutes, hours even but she would never tell him that.

"You know, their arrest stats are strange."

"Ours are better."

"She works as an investigator and as a forensic pathologist."

"That is kind of odd." Kinsley pauses to think this through. "Between working with Mulder and dead people, you'd think she might want a social life."

"Who says she hasn't got one?"

"I don't see a ring on her finger."

Stonecypher snorts. "That doesn't mean anything these days. I don't have a ring on my finger yet but that doesn't mean Julius and I aren't serious. I mean, you would think there would be a ring after all this time. You would expect that there be a ring after all this time - "

"What about Agent Mulder?" Kinsley has heard the whys-and-why-not's of Julius getting hitched to her for years. "I wonder if he has a social life."

"With his looks? I would think so." Stonecypher is very emphatic on this. "You know…" She pauses to stare at her subject from across the room. "I bet he is one of those men who doesn't even know he's good looking. Remember when Cindy tried hitting on him last night? Nothing."

"Maybe he's -" Kinsley coughs the rest of the insinuation.

"No. I don't think so. I've heard stories about other women from a long time ago. I think it's her. I think that if he is not seeing her now, he would like to and thus keeps his slate clear."

"Yes. It's as if they are too wrapped up in the other to even think about dating other people."

"Still, I bet think they do a lot of looking. Maybe even at other people. Unlike Julius, who now knows that even looking is off the menu."

"What about the rumours of them together?"

She furrows her brow. "I haven't decided yet. They didn't really speak enough in the car to tell me anything."

"You can tell by listening?"

"Yes, Mike. Women have a knack for that sort of thing."

"I suppose they - ooo, look. There he is now." Kinsley tosses his head in the direction of the main doors.

Agent Mulder creeps past the tables and slips into the empty seat next to Agent Scully. She acknowledges him with a raised eyebrow and pretends to listen to the speaker at the front.

"This is interesting," Stonecypher remarks.

An agent from Sacramento turns and gives them the Look of Silence.

Kinsley grabs a page of hotel note paper, scribbles something and shoves it towards Stonecypher: Notice how S. tries not to look at M.?

Stonecypher smiles at his observation. She may be able to decipher truths form words spoken or not but Kinsley has a knack for detecting body language. They make a fine team.

U're rite. He keeps trying to catch her eye. She's pis'd about .

His leg is twitching. I wonder what he is anxs about.

Maybe because of his hem'd condition.

He was jok'ng.

No he wasn't.

They shrug off this disagreement and pay attention to the speaker who is going on about teamwork and individuality and why one must include the other.

Kinsley flips over the piece of paper, jots down something else and slides it across the table.

Stonecypher hangs on to one more word and picks up the paper.

Whn we do combo team exercize, lets team up w/thm.

I told Lortz and Perez we team w/them.

You could sit w/M. and I'll sit w/S.

Stonecypher thinks this over and scribbles more. 'U interestd n hr?

Looks sad, 's all.

U like hr, dn't you.

He does. He just doesn't think he is that transparent. No. Dsn't mttr. We'll ptnr w/L&P

He folds the paper and wonders if Agent Scully would like coffee during the break. He feels a little kinship with her. They are both partnered with larger-than-life personalities. Keeping his identity wasn't always easy when Agent Stonecypher was in the room. He can't imagine the magnitude when Mulder takes the stage.

* * *

In line at the buffet table. Mulder picks up a plate and hands it to Scully. He picks up another for himself and they edge their way along the long line of food.

"I'm sorry, Scully." He leans over and whispers, "You were right." This is the first thing he has said to her since bolting that morning.

Scully merely reaches past him and picks up a roll.

"I was only worrying about you."

No response.

He piles deli meats onto his plate. "I was wrong and I'm apologizing." More silence. He waits until they get to the end of the table. "Look let's not fight, not here. It's us against them. Not us against each other."

"There should be no 'them' Mulder. We're all FBI agents here, all of us. This is a We." Scully walks around his large, apologetic frame and disappears into the crowd.

"Fine." He stands back while Simpson passes them. We. He is about to issue a comeback involving the word, 'traitor' but smartly keeps his yap shut.

Mulder strolls out of the buffet lunch, finds the main floor hallway that leads to another hallway that ends in doors marked, 'Employees Only', through which he exits at the back of the resort.

This door leads to a string of flower beds and a shitload of cement stairs to get down to them. Mulder sits down on the top step and wonders if he can name even half of the flowers out there. His mother could. She is a gardener through and through. It is the one activity in her life she never feared.

He reaches for the bottle of beer beside him and wonders why he reacted too strongly to ideas like, We are a Them. He never thought of himself as one of those people who take these kinds of words personally.

"Hey."

He jumps when a voice from behind scares the crap out of him.

"Sorry." Scully sits down next to him and balances a plate full of salad on her knees. "I appreciate your concern for me, Mulder, but I can handle it,"

"I know you can."

"And whatever ridicule I may face here or in DC, you are not the cause. I choose to work with you and the X-Files so that makes me just as accountable."

Mulder wonders if he will ever believe this. He wonders how she still can after all of these years. "I don't like being here. I don't like participating a second longer than I have to. I don't like you doing it either. We've given way too much to the Bureau, more than they have."

"You don't know that. We don't know anything about them, just as they know nothing about us. What makes us so different?"

"We just … are. We deal with things they will never understand, let alone believe. To put ourselves on the same lateral position as the others… it's no win, Scully. It never will be and I don't think it does either of us any good to try and make them see what we do."

"Why? That's what each of us does on a daily basis. We try to make each other see another point of view and if I do say so, I think we are relatively successful."

"That's because we respect each other. Nobody in there respects our work."

" 'Nobody' is a big word, Mulder."

It's useless to try again. He will only make things worse. Mulder dances his fork around his plate and stabs an inch of deli meat onto the end. He waves it in front of Scully's face. "Care for some processed animal matter?"

"No, thank you, I had a cup of salt earlier."

"Your loss." Mulder sticks the meat into his mouth because he knows this will get her eyes rolling. It does. "I've been thinking about those woods."

"Really."

"Really. I want to go back and reexamine some of the track prints."

"How do you know they'll still be there?"

"I don't." He raises his eyebrows. "I have a hunch there will be new ones. You should come with me. It will be a like our own individual team building exercises."

"And when Skinner arrives tomorrow to give his presentation, what is he going to think?"

"That his two FBI field agents are the only ones doing any work while forty-eight other sit on their asses? Come on, Scully, he'd be suspicious if we were there."

"Maybe we can rent our own car on the way back to the airport."

"Are you meeting me halfway?"

"No. Yes. Just halfway. Nothing more."

Mulder looks at the time. "We can always get a head start. You didn't really want to go the Mixed Partner sessions this afternoon, did you?"

"No." She hesitates again. "Yes. I thought I might."

"Ditch it."

"I can't. Not today. Tomorrow, after the presentation."

"Give me one good reason why we can't get the hell out of here today."

"How about noted absenteeism? Do you really want truancy hanging over our heads when we get home?"

"It's always going to be one thing or another, Scully, the laws of averages have proven that fairly accurately."

Law of averages, she thinks. Such a Mulder way of putting things.

"I'm not comparing us to them," he says. "They have lives we'll never understand. I just know that to force us into their picture is not going to work for anybody, on any level."

"So what do you suggest we do?"

"Play the game; say what they want to hear but nothing more. We don't offer anything even remotely personal about our partnership, our cases, what we have both given up, why we do what we do." The Painful Stuff, he is trying not to say. "That belongs to us. Nobody else."

She nods and says only, "I know." But, she thinks to herself, it might be nice to have someone else to share it with.

Twenty feet away, Stonecypher and Kinsley are watching the two through the glass doors.

"Did you know that the term, 'Little Green Men' is actually a misnomer? They are closer to being, 'Little Gray Men.'" says Kinsley. "Agent Mulder explained it to me. Apparently, their skin colour is more-"

"Never mind that. Look how she's leaning towards him."

"Maybe she finds him interesting."

"And his eyes haven't left hers."

"Maybe he finds her attentive." Kinsley wonders if Stonecypher ever found him as attentive. He doubts it. Maybe she does when he pretends to listen about Julius and his noncommittal ways. But those are probably the only times she pays full attention to him. Work issues are different. This is where they are in sync.

"It's starting to rain," Stonecypher says, tightening her collar even though she is indoors. She is planning a nature hike this afternoon and wants to wear her new windbreaker. Yellow. Lemon yellow. Her favourite. "Uh-oh, here they come."

Stonecypher and Kinsley dart out of the way before they are seen. Another quality of their good teamwork – they can think and disappear as one invisible wind.

"Mulder, I don't care what you say, it is a stretch to compare the Great Gazoo to the 'Malthusian Theory of Population'. For one thing, Malthus's theory was real. Gazoo isn't. And with a doomsday machine, the end of the world would happen in the mere seconds it takes to press the button. In Malthus's theory, it would be gradual, according to the increase in population and decimation of food to supply that demand."

They pass the two hidden agents and continue their discussion. Kinsley and Stonecypher just look at each other.

"What's the Malthisian theory of Population?" Stonecypher finally asks.

"Don't know," Kinsley responds, clearly puzzled. "Who's the Great Gazoo?"

 **End of Chapter 3**


	4. Chapter 4

the Detour Continues Chapter 4

* * *

The Power Session. "Refuel Your Power". That's how Presenter A is starting off her workshop. She is standing next to a file cabinet that is supposed to be a gas machine. In her right hand is a 12 inch ruler that is supposed to be a nozzle.

"I'm refueling myself and my team," she announces with delight.

There are snickers scattered among the captive audience. Literally captive. This session is mandatory. Attendance is taken. No excuses. Even Agent Simons who had to leave the morning session because of nasty hangover had to drag his ass down here.

Scully tunes out of the gas analogy and looks around at the faces of these fellow agents. All the partners are sitting together. Some look bored, some interested. Most are doodling or whispering to whoever is sitting next to them. It feels surreal that she and Mulder should be a part of this group, as if they belonged because they are ordinary people, not outcasts from space.

Mulder is making some kind of list but she can't make out what it is. She has the latest draft of her presentation hidden under her agenda.

Mulder thinks she is actually taking part until he sees the typed page hidden beneath the carefully placed paper. "What are you doing?"

"Draft of my presentation." The pen returns to its place between her teeth.

He feels inferior. He is only working on his Imaginary Dinner Guest List of Deceased Baseball Players - majors and minors. "I can proof read it if you want."

"No…. " She finds a misplaced comma and scratches it out. "I'm fine."

"You think of anything we need to be communicating about, you let me know",

"Mmmm," she says and eviscerates another comma.

He groans. "I hate these things. "

She presses the pen with extra force. "Join the club."

Then, the horrible words, "….. break into your assigned groups" bounce around the room from the microphone. "Blahblahblah. Teambuilding. Blahblahblah."

She looks at Mulder in time to hear, "Jesus Christ' slip out of his mouth. He crumples his list of dinner guests and leans towards her. "Glad you decided not to play hooky?"

"Shut up, Mulder," she whispers back.

The groups scatter to various corners of the ballroom. This leaves the losers at the dance. Smith and Wesson wander over to their table, looking as bored as they can.

"Well," Smith sighs. "Guess it's us four."

Scully is about to extend her hand and introduce herself and Mulder when Smith digs into her purse. "Damn, where did I put my smokes? Wes, you have my smokes?"

"Nope."

"Its non-smoking," Mulder reminds them for no other reason than he is pissed off.

"Duh, tell me something I don't know - oh, here they are." Smith puts a new box of cigarettes on the table, next to her elbow. She likes to leave them where she can see them. Nobody knows if this is a personal, phobic issue or if she just enjoys irritating people by having them in view of their judging souls.

Scully pulls the table's sole pad of paper towards her. She doesn't trust Mulder to leave any idle thoughts off the page and the other two don't seem to care one way or another. "Does anybody have any thoughts?"

Mulder snorts from her right. Wesson tightens his tie. Smith looks around. "I need a smoke."

"Okay," Scully mumbles under her breath. So it's going to be this kind of a crowd.

"Let me ask you two something," Wesson says, making himself comfortable. "What's it like living in that basement office?"

So they do know who Mulder and Scully are. Here come the cracks.

"I'd kill for a basement office," Smith adds. "Get away from the boobs on the sixth floor."

"They aren't that bad," says Wesson.

"Oh? You know how many times I have to hear Adams clipping his nails?"

"Which one?"

"All of them."

"No, which Adams."

"Bobby. And they aren't his fingernails he's clipping."

They continue their discussion about life on the sixth floor while Mulder and Scully look at each other in amazement. They aren't the topic of the usual office dissing. They have been usurped by a guy named Adams who clips his toenails in the office. They wonder what other subjects and behaviour went on upstairs.

"I need that smoke," Smith groans. She nods politely to her new friends. "Back in a sec. These things drive me mental."

Wesson jumps to his feet.

"What about the exercise?" Scully wants to know.

"Oh, just make something up," he tells her helpfully. "Everyone else does."

Mulder drops his head onto his arms and swears into the table cloth.

But Scully keeps an eye on them as they leave the room and step into the foyer. Just before they get out the nearest doors, Smith finds a cigarette in her purse. Without missing beat, Wesson produces a lighter and slips it to the tip of the cigarette. Smith smiles, leans into the flame and stands back with a perfectly placed smile.

"Oh my God," Scully exclaims in that same amazed way when she sees a perfectly intact lower intestinal system hanging from a tree branch.

Mulder mumbles, "What" from where his face is buried.

"They're sleeping together."

His head bounces up. "What?"

"Smith and Wesson."

"How the hell do you know that?"

"It's obvious, Mulder."

"Scully, let's remember that I'm the one with hunches, you're the one who wants hard evidence. So unless you have something better than women's intuition, try and keep that rumour on hold until I decide to believe it."

Scully lingers a moment longer on her discovery and then returns to the empty piece of paper in front of her. "All right. Question One. 'My definition of a well-functioning team is …' "

"One where one person doesn't make the other listen to dumb ass questions." Mulder leans over and grabs the pen out of Scully's hand. "You want to know what a well functioning team is? Us. It is us."

"We have our problems, Mulder."

"Yes, yes we do. And despite those problems, as many million as I know there are, we are still the kind of team that works because of who we are, not who anybody else is. Given our lives, personal and professional, we're the team we've become because we've learned that from each other; things you can't learn in this kind of manufactured environment. Monday morning, all of these people will return to their cities, their desks. Maybe a few who made friends will email a few laughs back and forth. By ten AM, they'll have forgotten this weekend and these nuggets they have learned because they will be ass-deep back in their own caseloads, in their own worlds where this world won't even be remembered."

A creepy voice interrupts. "And how are we doing?"

One of the facilitators, his hands behind his back, is towering above them, smiling like a nosey neighbour.

"We've lost half of our pair and are just about to go find them so that we can complete this exercise," Mulder tells the facilitator.

"That's not a problem. You two just carry on without them, Agent…." He tilts his head so he can read Mulder's badge "Dippshitz."

Scully's eyes fly over to Mulder's chest. She can't believe she didn't bother reading his name badge. Dipshitz.

The facilitator, used to this kind of thing from the passive aggressive clients, nods and moseys away to his next victims.

"Mulder, take that off."

"Later. Now look around this room and tell me who else is sleeping together."

She leans over and tears the square sticker from his shirt. "This is the kind of thing that makes us a target. This kind of thing, Mulder, not little green men or spaceships."

"I was telling Agent Kinsley that the real description for Little Green Men was actually…"

"I don't care."

Other teams are already diligently working away. Some people glance awkwardly at their partner and pretend to be distracted by an overhead plane. Some teams are glaring at each other. A few smile because they have already practiced the answers. Some pause thoughtfully, wanting to be as honest as they can. These are the people Scully envies right now. The ones who know they have everything to lose but forge ahead because they have everything to gain.

Mulder spares two, maybe three seconds scowling. He leans towards Scully and quietly demands, "What is it you really plan on getting out of this weekend?" He would like to hear her say it aloud because he is sick and tired of coming up with empty guesses. He knows she wants to leave and he knows she also wants to stay and see what the other agents are like; what their lives are like, and are any of those lives like hers.

"Maybe I'd like to learn something, Mulder. About me. About us. Has that occurred to you?"

Mulder shoves back the chair. "Let me know if you find out anything good." He gets as far as the door before one of the facilitator reminds him in a loud whisper that the washrooms are to the left of the boardroom. It is code for, you aren't getting out of here that easy.

"Do I care?" Mulder growls into the man's face and walks past him out of the room.

"Sir, a reminder, this session is mandatory for all agents-"

The door slams on his last word. The facilitator turns around. Everybody is watching, envying the nerve of the rebel agent.

"Ooo look at that," Stonecypher whispers into Kinsey's ear. They are huddled in a corner of the ball room with another team. Stonecypher is poised at a flipchart, ready to capture every prudent idea.

"Somebody's pissed," Watson from Kansas remarks. "Isn't that the spaceman guy?"

"Agent Mulder," Stonecypher corrects. She hates inexactitudes. "She doesn't look too happy either."

Watson stretches his head around her so he can see. "That the pathologist?"

"Agent Scully. I wonder what she said to him."

"Who says she said anything?" Kinsley genuinely wants to know. "Maybe he said something to her."

"Ohhh," Watson and Grimm sigh at the same time. "Not happy."

A chorus of other whispers began to surface:

"… If he doesn't come back, he's in deep shit."

"..…Hey, we're not supposed to leave this thing at all."

"…..Oh, old Spooky likes to play with fire, I'll say that much."

"…..I wonder if I can have his office."

"…..I wonder if I can have his partner."

"…..You're a pig."

* * *

End of Chapter 4


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

* * *

Sometimes, Dr. Dana Scully wishes she smoked.

For the first time since she saw her first open, contaminated, diseased lung, Dr. Dana Scully wishes she smoked.

Other people smoke and nobody thinks twice when they get up from their chairs and go outside to puff away on cheap, chemicaly laced tobacco. Nobody wonders what is wrong when the smokers politely excuse themselves for a bit of fresh air. No, people usually expect that kind of thing from smokers.

If Dr. Dana Scully was a smoker, she would glide out of the building to the world's most seculded spot and be grateful to be far away from the crowd without the crowd either noticing or caring. Mulder would not notice and, thus, not care. He would not think to look for her.

Maybe that is the problem.

* * *

The 'Mixed Partners Seminars' are over. The women's was sixty minutes of every subject under the umbrella of Life in the Boys Club. Scully listened to the stories and opinions and question that came up and she began to wonder when the rest of the world began to move ahead without her.

All of the women seem to have full, busy lives that include spouses, partners, families, even dog problems. A large number of the women are single; many divorced. And they are all assigned to male partners.

Some have male partners who listened to every word they said and tried to be as accommodating to their gender as possible. Some had male partners who tried to ignore the gender difference. Most had male partners who treated them with respect. The list grew throughout the seminar. And all Scully could wonder about was if any of these women had a male partner who would demand to make the midnight run for feminine hygiene products.

No, she finally decided. Probably not.

The seminar ends at four-forty and Scully finds herself hanging out with Agent Smith who is on her fifth smoke break. Scully tags along for lack of anything better to do. Mulder is still AWOL and the next seminar doesn't start for another twenty minutes, so she just follows the leader when Smith sighs, "I need a smoke, wanna come?"

Let someone else do the walking, talking and the thinking, Scully decides.

Agents Smith and Wesson intrigue her. They are similar to her and Mulder because they are not considered a Model Team. They are the opposite of Kinsley and Stonecypher because they don't care about appearances or protocol. They have their own style which, apart from the smoking issue, keeps them below the radar of the other agents in the bureau.

And they are sleeping together. She is sure of it.

So here she and Agent Smith are, sitting in one of the resort' flower gardens. This one has a man-made waterfall that pours from the top and sprinkles little drips at the bottom of the man-made pond. Smith sits down along a rock that is made from nature and lights up another cigarette.

"These things are a kick," she says, pleased. "You get paid to hang out in a nice place, all the food and booze you can handle - all for the cost of sitting in a big room while other people do all the talking."

"It was different." Revealing, she wants to say. Scully removes her shoes and swings her feet into the faux-water. It is warm. Fake algae sways back and forth. A real goldfish swims in and out. Fake, real, fake real. There seems to be a lot of that this weekend.

"So your partner - whats he so touchy about?" Smith asks, taking a long drag on her cigarette.

Scully only hears the last part. "Hmm?"

"Mulder?"

"He doesn't want to be here," explains Scully, preoccupied with the massive smoke ring that Smith just blew.

"Who does." Smith mistakes her expression. "Sorry, you'd think I was born in a barn. You want one?" Smith finds the last cigarette in her bag and kindly offers it to Scully.

Oh God, this is grade ten again and Suzy Cool is making the same offer. All of the girls would stand in the parking lot after school, smoking away. Someone in the group had an air freshener that is guaranteed to hide any smell that followed them home. Dana used to take one without a second thought.

"No, thanks."

Smith looks around, just to ensure that nobody is listening from the man-made trees and leans over to Scully. "Wes and I have a few other little smokes if you and Mulder want to drop by later."

"Oh. Well. No, we're good."

"No sweat. So what's is the deal with WonderBoy?"

"Pardon?"

"Mulder. I know he's supposed to be the weird one of the bureau, but he doesn't strike me as feckless. If he takes off he must have a better offer. What is it? Woman? Family?"

"A case. Road block a few miles down the road. He thought he could be of some help."

"Oh, yeah, that. Wes wanted to buzz them at ninety. He doesn't do well in stalled traffic."

"Mulder too. No patience."

Smith returns to her cigarette. "So what's he really like? Someone saw him crack a smile once and almost called 911."

Scully's head flies around. "Excuse me?"

"He's always so … serious. Like the guy with his head in the book of life. Does he ever look up?"

So, we are talking in metaphors now. Scully tries not to feel so defensive as she does that second. She knows she can be overprotective of Mulder; his life in general, his soul in particular.

"He's not like that. He's ... Mulder's very driven and he believes in the work that he does. He has a very strong sense of himself and carries himself with that sense of self respect."

"But he does crack a smile now and then."

Scully nods with a reluctant smile of her own. "Now and then."

"He is hot, I will give him that."

Scully looks over at this comment.

"Well, he is. Even you can't miss that fact."

No, even Scully can't miss that fact. "Yes, he is very good looking."

Smith is smiling an evil smile. "I didn't say 'good looking'. My shoes are good looking. He is hot."

"Well. Okay. He has his moments."

"Ah, so you do have eyes, Agent Scully. And we are not the only ones to think this about your mysterious agent Mulder. There may be snickers behind his back but on a good day, you'll get a lot of these behind his back too." She does the hand gesture for 'hot'. "I'm surprised he's not all over that."

"Mulder isn't the most observant man when it comes to things that are not on his immediate horizon."

Smith nods. She knows the type. "What did you think of the seminar? I got the feeling that behind all the questions, all anyone in the group today wanted to know is who's sleeping with who - wait, is it who or whom?"

Scully chokes on the water and the bluntness but manages to choke out, "Who with whom".

"Want to hear my picks?"

Yes, Yes, Yes.

Now is the time. Smith has just given the opening of a life time. Do it. Are-You-Sleeping-Together? Four words. One question mark. No guts.

"No, I don't think that would be very…." Ethical, Scully wants to say. Loyal, she could also use. "Nice," is what comes out instead.

"Nice? You think the crap that goes around about you two is nice? Or Wes and I or any of the other odd ball partnership out there?"

"I'm sure it's not that bad. People will always talk, no matter what the situation or who the players are."

Smith checks to her left and right and says quietly, "Wes and I have been sleeping together for years."

Scully tries not to gasp or cough or show any sign of being completely dazed by this information. "Oh," she finally says, calm as she can be. "You aren't worried someone in authority will find out?"

"I don't care. Unless they hire little spies to follow us around when we are on the road, who is going to believe it?"

"But there are always paper trails, aren't there?"

"Not if you're careful. I'm a whiz at the bills and receipts and per diems. We don't take advantage of those. We just … occasionally book a room that might not be used."

"Oh, Scully says, dumbfounded by the candid reveal and by the simplicity of it all.

"Who is it going to hurt? The work gets done. That's the bottom line."

Carefully, she puts the rest of her cigarette under her heal and crushes the life out of it. There is no attempt to pick up the butt and put it some place more environmentally friendly. "Besides, he and I aren't the only ones in the bureau doing the deed." Smith glances directly at Scully. "Are we?"

"Sleeping together? Mulder and I? No," Scully spits out before this conversation either depresses her or worries her. "Unless you're asking about who else in the bureau…."

"Sure," she lies coyly. "That's what I meant."

"We don't tend to encounter other agents in our work so there isn't much of an opportunity to …."

"Trust me - the Club isn't as small as you would think. You would be surprised what goes on under John Edgar's Big Top."

"Really?"

"Really."

"But …. " Scully is still grappling with the simplicity of the facts. "Doesn't the added component to your relationship with Agent Wesson - doesn't that get in the way of your partnership? I mean, surely you - the team dynamics must …" She is having a lot of difficulty wrapping this picture around her mind.

"Things are only as complicated as you make them, Dana. Take this weekend for example. You can bend over backwards trying to participate in every little detail or you could fight every item on the agenda or you can just do what you are told, enjoy a free meal, all the booze you can want and stay in a beautiful place and get paid for every second you're here. I know which option I choose."

Smith is right, Scully thinks to herself as the dense shroud of doubts begin to float away. She knows she has her bad habits and one of them is always assuming a conclusion and then taking the long, complicated, way-too-thought-out road. It is a curse of her scientific background that she tends to apply to all corners of her life, not just the one she gets paid for. It reminds her of a conversation she had with Mulder.

"You know, once during a long road trip in the middle of nowhere, Mulder suddenly announced that he would like to be a dog for a few hours; every meal is new, every day is Christmas, nobody wants anything from you except to be who you are and the decisions are non-existent - you just do what they tell you because you're a dog and that's what you want to do anyway."

He also made a comment about leg-humping but Scully leaves that out.

"See?" Smith nods. "He appreciates the simplicity. If Mulder wants to wander off and go solve whatever he wants to solve, what's the problem? If you want to attend the sessions or just hang out by the pool and drink yourself silly, that's your choice. Too many people get way too uptight over too many things. Did you hear that agent from Long Island complaining how her partner wanted them to get as much out of this weekend's seminars as they could and all she wanted was a break from her kids yelling at home?"

Scully remembers. Most of the women nodded and agreed that the partner was putting too much pressure on himself and the team.

"And that," Smith announces with her air of wisdom, "is why your partner wants to be a dog."

If Mulder can be a dog, then she would like to be Gladys Smith for a few hours. Then, maybe she wouldn't mind so much when Mulder takes a few hours to become a dog.

* * *

 **End of Chapter 5**


	6. Chapter 6

**the Detour Continues Chapter 6**

* * *

This conversation with Smith, revealing in so many ways, leaves Scully irritable. All she wants now is to go to her room, shower, take some aspirin and check out for the night. Maybe see if Mulder is back. Or maybe not.

On her way back to the elevators, she plows directly into the back of a tall man to whom she is about to give a filthy look for getting in her way.

"Agent Scully."

Skinner. He looks disturbingly at ease this evening. He is dressed for a weekend visit to the country but not so relaxed that he can't fire one or two of his best agents with a tilt of his head. "I was hoping to run into you before - what's wrong?"

He has seen the sudden worry on her face.

"Nothing. You just took me by ... I - we thought you were coming tomorrow."

"Element of surprise." Skinner is now peering over her head. "Is Agent Mulder around? I need to have a world with him."

"Agent Mulder is - I am not actually sure where he is this very second." She can swear she can see her nervous reflection in his glasses. The lenses have a way of reflecting peope's sins back at them. "I'm on my way upstairs for the night. I'll see you in the morning, sir."

"Agent Scully -" She doesn't look very well, but he decides to back off. "Nothing. See you tomorrow."

The elevator opens and she steps inside, hoping he doesn't follow. The silver doors squeeze him out of sight.

He was watching her, thinking she isn't well. The entire room was watching her today when Mulder stormed out, waiting to see if she was going to show solidarity or stay with the ship. They will all be watching her tomorrow when she delivers her presentation. Mulder has been watching her since the minute she left the hospital, making sure that she wasn't returning to her old, ill self.

Suddenly, she is very tired of feeling watched.

* * *

Mulder is jamming overnight supplies into a knapsack.

His hears his hotel door opens as Scully appears from the corner of his eye.

"Game night downstairs," she lightly jokes from the doorway.

Mulder sighs and turns around. "Please tell me its Hide and Seek."

"You wish. Hey, I might have been right about … Mulder? What's wrong?"

He is not looking at her but she can tell he wants to.

"Mulder?"

He clears his throat as if he is going to make a speech. But it is not a speech that comes out. "I got a call from the Sheriff's office - they wanted to let - they thought we should know that - Officer Fazikas and the hunter - they died a few hours ago."

"What?" Scully sits down on the side of the bed. The victims of the caves had completely left her mind once the reality of this weekend began to set in. The last she heard, the prognosis was positive. Case over. Next hurdle.

There is a slow sinking on the mattress as Mulder carefully lands next to her "Scully?"

"I'm fine."

'Of course,' he thinks. But he remembers that when this woman is hurting, the iron wall will always swing into motion, with or without her consent. "They'll be sending the bodies to the main coroner's office in the morning."

"Okay."

His arm finds its way around her shoulder and gives it a single squeeze. Mulder does this sometimes; she wonders if he even knows he is performing this role that was yanked from his life at the age of twelve. He is her friend, co-worker, significant other, competitor, conscience, enemy, and - at times like this - big brother.

They sit silently for a moment, arms touching, knees touching. Each of the agents stare at the carpet and wonder what they could have done differently and why what they did do obviously wasn't enough.

"What were you going to tell me?" he quietly asks, wondering if it could be any worse that what he just told her.

"Nothing. Something stupid. Did you go back to the caves today?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"And I saw the third set of prints. And they were similar to the others. They asked for our help on a few details. I can go alone if you don't feel up to it…"

Why wouldn't I feel up to it? She wants to ask but with Mulder, the answer could be one of three things: the Unmentionable Calendar of last evening or the News of the Past Minute or the Health Scare of Both Their Lives two months ago.

Instead, Scully tells him that Skinner is downstairs.

"Thought he wasn't coming until tomorrow."

"Probably didn't want to miss Game Night."

It's a comforting thought.

"I'll let him know where we're going on our way out."

"We can't just take off."

He stands up and returns to the knapsack. "The local police department has asked for help on this case. He'll understand."

"Don't do this," she says quietly, firmly.

He zips up the knapsack with a final loud saw. "You stay and do what you need to do. I'll follow my conscience as I see fit."

There is a long, worried Scully-sigh. "Don't draw any more attention to us, Mulder. Let's just do as you said, play the game, and make it out of here alive."

"What makes you think I'm leaving this place because I want to, 'make it out of here alive?' I'm a federal investigator – a local police department has asked for our help. That's our job. Not this crap."

"Being here is also part of our jobs. This is where we are being paid to be."

He tosses the knapsack over his shoulder. "I'll be back before your presentation tomorrow." He says it earnestly enough but the doubt in her face is there. "I will."

"I know you will."

"You don't look like you believe me."

"No - I do -" She takes a deep breath and says the worst. " Maybe - I think - It would be easier for me if you weren't there."

"Excuse me?"

The hounds are out. "Do you honestly think there is nothing to be learned by an exchange of ideas from our peers?"

"You still think we need help?" The thought is even more absurd to him. "You and I?"

"I didn't say we need 'help'. I am saying that we need to be open to new ideas that help us as a team. I think it wouldn't hurt to look at our work and partnership from an objective point of view and see if there are areas for improvement; celebrate the areas in which we excel."

"And the fact that you and I have been through hell and back together doesn't rate on your scale for improvement? Scully, you're the only partner - hell, the only human being - in whom I've had absolute trust. I can't imagine working alongside any other person as completely as I do with you. How does that need to be improved?"

And the next unexpected announcement comes soaring out before she can stop herself. "Because I don't feel the same way."

Mulder's mouth slowly cracks open. An hour of silence seems to pass. "What the hell did they all talk about in that seminar today?"

There is no time for an answer. There is a sharp knock on the door and Skinner walks into the room. "Agents."

His agents haven't even noticed him.

His voice pokes through the silence "….Is everything all right?"

"Yes," Mulder and Scully answer at the same time, their eyes locked.

It's Mulder who breaks the deadlock first. "I'm on my way out," he announces to his boss.

"Where?" Skinner says.

"I've been asked to help with an investigation here."

"And the local PD here has cleared you from all responsibility from your job at the FBI? Funny, I missed that email. Rumour has it you two were AWOL at the seminar this afternoon."

"I left. Scully stayed."

"Any reason in particular you left?"

Mulder shrugs. "I was bored?" What is he going to say? I left because Agent Scully didn't agree with me and the thing was a load of bullshit. Too obvious.

"Which brings us back to you not following a simple, ordinary order. Mandatory attendance. Simple. Do you know why you were both ordered to attend this weekend?"

They look at each other very quickly.

"You are under review. Again. They are looking for anything, agents, anything to use against you to put you two quietly into separate corners of the bureau. The incident with Section Chief Blevins, as long time coming as it obviously was, has opened up even more cans of worms." His head glides back and forth between the two people in front of him, waiting for that magical clue that will tell him what he has missed.

"I'm going to my room," Scully says to the floor. And without a final look to Mulder, she leaves.

"What is going on here?" Skinner asks when they are alone.

Mulder sighs tensely and rubs his brow. "Just a difference of opinion."

"Obviously. Would you like to tell me about what?"

Mulder is so blindsided he doesn't even register that Skinner is speaking to him. "No," is all he can finally say. "I don't."

* * *

 **END OF Chapter 6**


End file.
